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This page contains a thematically organized list of websites related to Chernobyl.


General Information

Chernobyl.info is the international communications platform on the long-term consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.   It represents a global communication platform for all those engaged in fostering the safety and development of the region surrounding Chernobyl, with its three million inhabitants in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Wikipedia's page on Chernobyl is a publicly editable but generally thorough overview of the Chernobyl disaster.

The Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues' annotated Chernobyl bibliography contains recommendations for futher reading.

The Battle of Chernobyl accompanies a television program produced by The Discovery Channel, and contains a chronological overview of the disaster.


Government and International Organization Websites

The Chernobyl Center for Nuclear Safety Radioactive Waste and Radioecology. Here one can find such things as the official assessment of radioactive contamination and radiation doses of flora and fauna of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Official Ukrainian Chernobyl power plant website. Here one can find everything from an English translation of the Law “On Status and Social Protection of Population Suffered from Chernobyl Catastrophe,” to photos from different years, to information on current radiation levels. 

Official site of Exclusion Zone and unconditional (obligatory) resettlement Administration. (in Ukrainian)

The United Nations Chernobyl site containing information relating to the 20th anniversary, conferences and reports that highlight the relationship between the event and the organization.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Chernobyl website offers many multimedia features, a good timeline, reports, stories and information and links regarding the 20th anniversary, as well as downloadable articles and publications.

Chernobyl: Assessment of Radiological and Health Impacts
features downloadable reports from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's site on Chernobyl offers a short fact sheet about the disaster.

Index on Censorship February 2006 special issue on “The Hidden Histories of Chernobyl,” includes articles by Alla Yaroshinskaya, Svetlana Alexievich, and others

Nature. April 20, 2006, special issue on “Chernobyl, 20 Years On”

Article by Chernobyl expert David Marples on “The Chernobyl Disaster: Its Effects on Belarus and Ukraine.”

Chernobyl in Photos and Art

Photos of the “lost city” of Chernobyl.

Extensive photo galleries of Pripyat, Chernobyl, and life before, during and after the accident.

The website of photographer Paul Fusco, author of “Chernobyl Legacy,” a photo essay of lives affected by Chernobyl.

An online exhibit of artwork drawn by affected children entitled “Chernobyl-It is Our Pain.”

A compelling and recent National Geographic Chernobyl slideshow.

Kidd of Speed (Elena Vladimirovna Filatova)’s Chernobyl pages (she is the infamous Chernobyl motorcyclist). Photos and videos can be found here.

Also see www.elenafilatova.com for Ms. Filatova’s Chernobyl journals.

Chernobyl and Literature

Lyubov Sirota’s ‘Chernobyl poems.’ Sirota was a resident of Pripyat when the accident occurred. In the days that followed, she and her son grew gravely ill from heavy doses of radioactive contamination. To express her grief and rage, she turned to writing poems, and collected them in a small book entitled Burden.

Poem “Chernobyl” by Belarussian poet Volha Ipatava (in Belarussian and English translation)

Sergii Mirnyi’s website. Mirnyi was a commander of radiation reconnaissance platoon in Chernobyl in 1986. He is now a writer and an internationally known expert on the Chernobyl Disaster and mitigation of ecological-social disasters.

Interview with writer, scientist, and Chernobyl liquidator Sergii Mirnyi on Bellona.org.

Alexander Borisovich Kramer’s tale “Cherno (Bil),” - a play on words in Russian that insinuates that something “was black.” It is a story that takes place in 1988 about a worker in the zone. It was originally published underground in a samizdat journal. (In Russian)

Chernobyl poems published in The Ukrainian Quarterly, Spring 1996, by Oksana Pakhliovska, Sofia Maidanska, and Oksana Zabuzhko

Chernobyl in Music and Film

Children of Chernobyl (DJ Simpson a.k.a. Denys): Information and song downloads from a Ukrainian Chernobyl inspired musical group.

Download a two minute TV segment from the Soviet news program Vremya about work in the zone. December, 1987.

Interview in Central Europe Review with filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter about his documentary film, “Pripyat.”

Download a 45 minute documentary from RENTV called Chernobyl: 20 Years After Life.

Download a 56 minute USA/Ukraine/Spain joint documentary in DVD quality called Radiophobia.


Chernobyl Humanitarian Organizations

Friends of Chernobyl’s Children, a UK based group that devotes its energies to raising funds to bring children, who are at risk, from Belarussia to the United Kingdom for a month every year.

The Chernobyl Children's Project International hopes to effect real change in the Chernobyl-affected areas harnessing the unique spirit of volunteerism that permeates every level of the organization. They wish to develop, facilitate and affect long-term sustainable community-based solutions, providing effective principled humanitarian assistance while advocating for the rights of the victims and survivors of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster.

The United States Charitable Fund is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to provide relief to children affected by the Chernobyl Nuclear explosion of 1986 by bringing them to America each summer.

Chabad's Children of Chernobyl (CCOC) is an organization that evacuates children affected by Chernobyl to Israel for medical treatment.

The Chernobyl Children Project USA, Inc. is a non-profit organization that provides respite and relief to the children affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. Established in 1995, the Project is directed and staffed by volunteers from the greater Boston area who seek to help the people of the Chernobyl area by means of aid, medical assistance, education, and caring.

Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund (CCCF) is a registered charitable organization established in 1989 to provide humanitarian aid to victims of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. CCCF, through its various projects, distributes medication, medical and technical equipment, supplies and food to clinics, treatment centers, hospitals and orphanages and sponsors a variety of projects to improve health care and the general well-being of disadvantaged and ill children in Ukraine.

Childern of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund
. This organization’s mission is to protect and save the lives of Ukrainian children, all of whom confront the legacy of the Chernobyl catastrophe and other environmental disasters. Its goal is to provide state-of-the-art medical aid to Ukrainian children with cancer, genetic birth defects, heart disease, and immune deficiencies.

Children of Chernobyl Foundation reaches out to children living in Belarus by offering summer visitor programs to children whose immune systems may still be affected by aftereffects of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion.


Other Information

Herman Damveld’s account of the accident: Chernobyl: Five Years of Disaster, a very thorough blow by blow account of the before, during and after of Chernobyl.

The Chernobyl Museum in Kyiv, including photos and news.

The portal for the city of Slavutich (in Russian), the town where many former inhabitants of the zone were relocated and where many current Chernobyl employees live. The “forum” provides great insight into the lives of the relocated.

A complete Ukrainian language translation of Mary Mycio’s ‘Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl.”

Effects of the Chernobyl Disaster on Sámi Life by Melanie Blackwell. An analysis of the effects of Chernobyl on Sami, an indigenous group that lives in the Scandinavian and Russian far north.

Information about Chernobyl tours offered by a Ukrainian company.